


only the water remains

by sky_somedays



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Amnesia, Angst, Bonding, Canonical Character Death, Drug Use, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jesse-centric - Freeform, M/M, Recovery, Timespace Travel, consciousness-integration, tagging anything as au in this fandom is hilarious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 14:45:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18284411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_somedays/pseuds/sky_somedays
Summary: Jesse dies on a beach and wakes up in a dorm room.





	only the water remains

**Author's Note:**

> this is..... idk what this is. i started writing immediately after watching pt2 and trying to get over jesse’s death scene so it’s more an exercise in making myself feel better than anything else.
> 
> i played fast and loose with some of the in-canon timespace logic here – in the show they jump dimensions but they don’t seem to time travel, but in this jesse jumps forward a few months.
> 
> title from Jump In The Pool by Friendly Fires.

He wakes up gasping. Hands on his chest. Looking for patches. They’re his own hands, but he doesn’t realize this at first, can’t connect the movements he’s feeling into a coherent whole. He can’t tell if the feeling of sand in his hair, of panic climbing up his throat, is real or imagined.

There are no patches. He’s shirtless in a bed in a room that he doesn’t recognize. He’s alive. The hands on his chest are his own. He breathes, and his ribcage expands under his shaking fingers. No sand. No choking panic.

“Fuck,” Jesse says, testing his voice. It sounds the same. “ _Fuck_.” There’s a distant sound in his ears – not the crashing of the waves, anymore, but a faint ringing.

He sits up and the room swings around him. It takes a moment, head cradled in his hands, before the world rights itself and he can look around. There’s nobody else there, though there are two beds. There are two desks and a mini-fridge. A huge white board on the wall by the door. The floor’s covered in clothes; clothes and papers and Gatorade bottles. A pizza box. PS4 controllers.

There’s a phone on the table nearby and he reaches for it, hands already steadying. The phone tells him that it’s noon on a Tuesday in November. 2016. Outside the window sparrows chatter, and the room is lemony yellow in the filtered sunlight, cool and peaceful.

His thumb print opens the phone and he scrolls through the unfamiliar arrangement of apps until he finds the camera app. Switches to front-facing. An echo of an old impulse, he starts recording as he examines himself, red-rimmed eyes, sheet lines, his hair a little longer than he remembers. The relief is palpable and he sucks in a sharp breath as he raises his fingers to his nose, his forehead. Confirming with as many senses as he can.

“I jumped,” he says, whispers it to himself in the phone camera. “I  _jumped_.”

_You killed yourself_ , he thinks but doesn’t say.  _Like mom_.

He’s in a dorm room; there’s no other explanation. Jesse had never planned on going to college, knew he didn’t have the test scores to get in anywhere good. He slides off the bed and finds cleans clothes in the pile on the floor; sweats and a grey athletic tee. He pulls them on as he examines the rest of the room, finds the shirt loose on him but doesn’t change it. There are computer science textbooks on what must be his desk. A bong that looks a lot nicer than the one he and Ali had.

His roommate’s bed is made haphazardly and the desk is tidier, but only slightly. There’s a handful of photographs thumb-tacked to the hutch over the desk and Jesse nearly drops his phone – still recording – when he sees them. “ _Steve_ ,” he says, and he touches the corner of one picture with his finger, points the camera at it. They’re of Steve and Angie.  _His_  Steve and Angie – they look the same, nearly. Steve’s hair is buzzed. Angie has an undercut. They’re smiling and hugging and laughing and Jesse gulps at the air for a moment, can’t breathe, is so glad to see them that he can’t handle it.

His phone starts ringing. Jesse flinches back, drops it, watches the screen smash off the corner of the desk on the way down. When he retrieves it, there’s a crack running down the glass, bisecting the alarm notification.  _GO TO UR APPOINTMENT_  it reads.

Jesse shuts off the alarm and stops recording. Turns to the white board with its hand-drawn calendar. There are class schedules and plans written in different colours.  _DATE NIGHT W ANGIE ❤_  is scrawled in Steve’s hand on one of the weekends. Another weekend reads  _FACETIME BUCKEROO_.

_Need more weed_  is written on the side in Jesse’s handwriting. Steve had responded:  _HAHA_  and then under that  _I’LL PICK UP TMRW_.

There’s a sticky note on that day’s date. Steve’s writing, again, this time in pencil.  _JESSE – DONT FORGET UR BBA APPT U FUCKIN TOOL. 12:30 STUDENT BUILDING RM305_

*

Jesse hasn’t been on a college campus before. He manages to find the student building with the aid of a campus map at the front desk of the residence building. It’s a beautiful day outside; deep blue sky and full sun. He forgot to find a hoodie or sweater and he walks fast against the chill breeze. It feels weird not to have the extra layer, but less weird than normal; Jesse wonders if in this dimension he’s more comfortable like this.

The student building is busy. He gets lost twice on the third floor before he finds the suite with the correct room. The sign outside says  _Academic Counseling Office_. The lady behind the desk tells him to go right through; that Betty is expecting him.

When he sees BBA sitting behind the desk, he chokes.

“Jesse, come in,” she says. Frowns as he stands frozen in the doorway. “You’re breathing very hard. Are you having an attack?”

Jesse shuts the door, sinks into the chair opposite her. He feels weirder than he’s ever felt in his life. Weirder than any drug has ever made him. “No, I – sorry. Sorry. It’s really good to see you.”

BBA tilts her head, eyes softening. She looks the same. She’s wearing a sweater that Jesse recognizes. “Are you alright?”

Unthinkingly, Jesse reaches a hand across her desk and she takes it in both of hers. The gesture seems familiar to both of them. Her hands feel the same. Her eyebrows pinch together the same way. She smells the same, the perfume she wore that always reminded him of some distant childhood memory he couldn’t pin down. Made him feel safe. “I’m fine,” he chokes out, squeezing her fingers. “I’m just – um. Travel sick, I think.”

“Travel sick? Where did you go?”

Jesse closes his eyes, shakes his head. “No, um. Nowhere. Just feeling weird today, you know?”

“I know, honey. The anniversary is coming up soon, isn’t it?”

Jesse takes a deep breath. Opens his eyes. The sun is streaming through the window behind BBA and it’s haloing her, glinting around her hair, and all he can think of is OA. He wishes he could talk to her. “Anniversary?”

“Of your mom’s passing. Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. It’s so hard to lose someone like that.” She doesn’t let go of his hand. “When Theo died I could barely remember what day it was for weeks after.”

Jesse nods. Swallows hard. “Yeah,” he says, “yeah. It’s like that.” His mom died in the summer in his dimension; he wonders what else is different.

It turns out that the appointment is about dropping a class he’s struggling in. BBA tells him the drop deadline has passed but that she has pulled some strings and he has been granted an exception. Jesse thanks her, numb, his mind full of static. She prints him a fresh copy of his class schedule and tells him to come and talk to her any time. Jesse remembers the look on her face on the beach, the way she had touched his shoulder and hadn’t said anything when he shrugged her off.

“Thank you,” he tells her as he’s about to leave. “You were really there for me. I’m sorry I didn’t realize.”

She looks like she wants to ask him what he means, but she just smiles at him.

*

Jesse is standing outside, wondering what to do next, when his phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s a text from Steve. All-caps, even across dimensions.  _WHERE R U_

Student building Jesse responds, and his hands are shaking, staring down at his phone. There is an entire string of texts that he doesn’t remember. He scrolls up, skimming through conversations he never had.  _Pack a bowl for when class is done pls_  and  _WHAT DID U DO WITH MY ROOM KEY_  and  _you and ali are wrong actually archer’s not funny at all tell angie she’s right_  and  _I LEFT A BURRITO IN THE FRIDGE 4 U_. Out of context moments he wishes he’d experienced for himself.

“Yo! Jesse!”

When Jesse looks up, Steve and Angie are walking towards him. They’re swinging their linked hands and grinning. He nearly drops his phone.

“Where’s your coat, man?” Angie asks when they reach him. “It’s not  _that_  nice out.”

“Forgot,” Jesse says. His mouth feels slow and clumsy against the word. They look so good, so familiar.

“Dude,” Steve says, eyes flicking over Jesse. “You’re wearing my shirt.”

Jesse blinks. “Oh. Uh. Sorry.”

“It’s cool. Whatever. I know you’re always trying to cop my style.” Steve leers, tugs at his own shirt, sporty-looking with the sleeves cut off. Beside him, Angie snorts.

“What style’s that?” she asks, poking him in the side. “Athleisure, but shitty?”

They seem like the Steve and Angie that Jesse knows. He watches them argue in the same playful way he remembers, and he doesn’t realize he’s crying until they stop and stare at him. They’re wearing matching worried expressions.

“You okay, Jess?” Angie squeezes his arm. Reaches up with her other hand to wipe the tear tracks from his face, and there’s something about the familiarity of that touch that is alien even as Jesse relishes it. “Did you have an attack?”

Jesse doesn’t know what this could mean so he shakes his head. “Uh, no, uh. Just smoked too much I guess. Feel really weird.”

“Did you make it to your appointment?” Steve asks, expression serious. “I left you, like, a note. And I set an alarm on your phone.”

“You did that?”

“Yeah, dipshit. You already missed the one last week and you know how BBA hates it when you cancel.”

Jesse rubs at his eyes. Winces. “Yeah. I went.”

“Good. And?”

Jesse frowns, not used to so many questions. “Um. I’m dropping one of my classes, I can retake it next semester.”

Steve looks relieved. “Fuck yeah. I knew BBA would come through.” He hooks an arm around Angie’s shoulders and she tucks herself into his side, sticks her hand in his back pocket. Steve holds his other arm out to Jesse. Raises his eyebrows when Jesse falters. “C’mere, loser.” So Jesse does. He settles himself on Steve’s other side, shoulders the heavy warmth of Steve’s arm and lets it anchor him. Steve gives them both a squeeze; Angie laughs.

They walk back to the dorm room like that, jostling each other and snorting and taking up the entire sidewalk. Jesse expects Steve to take his arm away. He expects to be gently disengaged. Instead, Steve insists that they can fit through the res building door all together if they turn sideways, and refuses to let Jesse go even as they hold up a line of irritated students and get glared at by the person at the front desk. By the time they’re back at the room, Angie pulling Steve’s key from his pocket for him, Jesse’s face is hurting from smiling.

*

The next few mornings, every time Jesse wakes up he expects to find that it was all a dream. But it isn’t.

It takes a few days before he can sleep through the night. He learns his way around campus. He goes to his classes – half as many as Steve, he had dropped some even before meeting with BBA – and is friendly to everyone who is friendly to him. He scrolls through social media that is only half-familiar; tries to memorize names and faces of people he doesn’t know. He has to listen carefully to everything people say; it’s like piecing together a puzzle but everyone around him expects him to already be finished. It’s exhausting, but it’s a new kind of exhaustion than he is used to.

Steve keeps asking if he’s okay. They do everything together outside of class; they get dinner in the cafeteria, they hang out with Angie whenever she can visit, they brainstorm ideas for videos, they play video games on Steve’s PS4 and smoke weed out of the window and argue about what Netflix series to watch. It’s not like Jesse wasn’t friends with Steve before – Jesse has been following and filming Steve for years – but this Steve is different. He’s like Jesse’s Steve, but  _more_. He laughs more. Touches more. Talks more.

Or maybe he was like that in Jesse’s dimension, too. Jesse isn’t sure if he can trust his memories; it’s like they have a sepia filter, all the colour and joy washed away. Ever since the shooting. Maybe even before.

“Are you  _sure_ you’re okay?” Steve asks for the fiftieth time as they walk across campus to their only shared class. “Is this anniversary stuff or something else? You can tell me, bud.”

Jesse believes him but when he opens his mouth, the words won’t come. He shrugs.

“Well if things are getting bad again, tell me. We can skip school and go bowling or some shit. Whatever you want.” Steve slings his arm around Jesse’s shoulders and leaves it there until they get to class. It’s still weird, all the touching, but Jesse finds that he falls into step with Steve like it’s habit.

*

Jesse has been here for a week. He’s adjusting. He’s homesick but he doesn’t even know what he misses; wonders if this is just a side effect of travel.

He reads through all the texts on his phone. Apparently he and Ali talk sporadically, mostly plans to FaceTime every few weeks, and it’s visceral how much he misses hearing her voice. There’s a conversation with his dad from six months ago that he’s too scared to open. Texts from Steve and Angie, and Buck, who is still in high school and who Steve says is going to visit with Angie soon. Buck mostly sends him memes and ugly selfies. Jesse can’t wait to see him.

There’s a handful of texts from French, too, but they don’t tell Jesse much. French is his number one on Snapchat but when Jesse checks his memories but he hasn’t saved anything useful, and there are no screenshots in his camera roll, so he doesn’t know what that means.

He asks Steve about it, carefully. “Have you seen French lately?”

“French?” Steve’s expression is hard to read. “Not since that party a while ago. I keep telling him he owes me a fuckin’ Mario Kart rematch but the asshole won’t return my texts.”

Jesse wonders how this French compares to the one he knows. If he’s screening Steve’s texts he’s probably not that different. Jesse snorts.

“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up. Just cuz he always answers  _you_  doesn’t mean he’s not a total fucking flake.” Steve rolls his eyes and goes back to his laptop.

Jesse frowns down at his phone. French had texted him twice, just before Jesse had arrived, but nothing important.  _You left your hat here_  and  _I’m so hungover_. Jesse hadn’t responded; wonders if that’s a transgression for this dimension’s Jesse, whether he’s less likely to leave people on read.

*

French texts him a few days later. It’s late; Angie and Steve are curled up in Steve’s bed, sleeping while Jesse scrolls through his phone in the dark. He hasn’t explored all of it yet; he’s only scrolled a few weeks back in his pictures and hasn’t even searched through all of his apps, is too intimidated by the million folders all labeled with emojis instead of words. He still feels a little like he’s intruding.

_Still have your hat_  French’s text reads.  _I can come to your building_.

Jesse rubs at his eyes, typing in his response one-handed.  _Sure_.

_I’ll text when I’m there._

It’s only a few minutes before Jesse’s phone buzzes again. He wonders if French was already on his way over, or if he just happened to be nearby. Jesse isn’t sure why his palms prickle nervously as he tip-toes to the door. He slips into the hallway, careful to be quiet. French is leaning against the opposite wall toying with his phone. He looks exactly like Jesse remembers him.

“Hey,” Jesse says, voice cracking a little.

“Hey,” French says, and he looks weird; defensive and restless. “Here.” He’s holding a beanie that Jesse hadn’t noticed until now. He tosses it at Jesse.

“Thanks,” Jesse says, turning it over in his hands. He doesn’t wear hats much. He wonders when that changed in this dimension.

“Haven’t heard from you in a while.”

Jesse hesitates. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I’ve – been busy.”

“Right. Busy.” French looks away, shifts from foot to foot. “Sure.”

“It’s been a weird week.” Jesse wishes he remembered more about French. Everything he knows is from his own dimension; the strained control, the way he wouldn’t look at Steve and Jesse when he picked up. His expression when he confronted Steve in Angie’s kitchen. The press of his shoulder in the backseat of Angie’s mom’s car. Jesse had seen French with his little brothers once, in the grocery store, picking out cereal. They had waved to each other from opposite ends of the aisle. That’s how things always felt to Jesse, though. Waving from a distance.

“It’s been more than a week,” French says now. He pushes off the wall, takes a step forward.

“Oh.”

“You can just say you’re not interested, man. You didn’t have to ghost me.”

Jesse is beyond confused. “Not interested?”

“It’s been  _nine days_. Message fucking received.” French’s voice is straight up angry now. It’s rising, shaking slightly. Jesse can see a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I don’t even know why I’m  _here_.”

Steve opens the door then, his hair awry, shirtless. He scowls at French. “What the fuck. Keep your voice down, Angie’s trying to sleep.”

“I was just leaving,” French snaps. “Apparently I’m wasting my time.”

“French,” Jesse says, wants to explain that he doesn’t  _remember_ , doesn’t understand, and he feels stupid and clumsy with it. Doesn’t know what to say to fix it. Doesn’t even know what it is.

“Fuck you,” French hisses, and he steps into Jesse’s space.

Steve is out of the room in an instant, stepping between them with one arm extended like he might shove French back. Like he can shield Jesse from the words with movement. “Back the fuck off.” Steve’s shoulders are rigid, his voice dangerous. “Don’t talk to him like that. It’s the anniversary, you fucking dick.”

French stares Steve down for a moment, breathing hard. “Anniversary?”

“His  _mom._ ”

French’s expression shifts immediately. Collapses a little. “ _Shit_. Shit, I – I for –”

“It’s fine,” Jesse says, and he wishes he  _remembered_ , wishes he understood the way that Steve’s eyes flick between them, the furrow between his brows like he’s trying to work something out. Wishes he understood French’s expression – a mess of hurt and guilt and fear. “It’s just. It’s been weird.”

French nods. He looks like he wants to say something else but he glances at Steve and stays quiet.

“I’m going back to bed,” Steve says after a beat. Jerks his chin in Jesse’s direction. “You coming?”

Jesse shrugs. “Yeah. Okay.” He glances at French. “Hey, um. Sorry. I just need some time, I think.”

French nods stiffly. “Of course you do. See you around.”

“What’s his problem?” Steve grumbles as they watch French disappear down the hall. “You guys have a fight?”

Jesse shakes his head helplessly. He has no idea.

*

Jesse is drenched in sweat when he jolts awake, fingers clawing at his chest. It’s early. The sun is just starting to rise outside and the light is pale with it. Jesse had slept fitfully for two days after seeing French, had struggled through an assignment and had FaceTimed Buck and had tried to pretend that his life was starting to feel familiar. But it’s  _this_  that feels most familiar; dreaming of death on a beach. Alone in a tent. Waves crashing.

Jesse sits up on the edge of his mattress and gulps at the air, tries to calm his frantic heart. He reaches for the box on the table where he keeps his weed shit and knocks it flying, his movements jerky. It crashes into the wall.

“The fuck, dude?” Steve mutters, lifting his head from where it was mashed into his pillow. “Why’re you awake?”

“Nightmare.” Jesse waves a hand at him. “Go back to sleep.”

Steve fixes him with a bleary glare. “Well I’m awake  _now_. You’re having nightmares again?”

Jesse is so tired of this; of hearing  _again?_ and not knowing what it means. “Might smoke,” he mumbles. He slides to the floor, sits with his back against the wall, and reaches for the bong. He doesn’t try to find a lighter, just lets the glass cool his fingers.

Steve joins him on the floor, pulling on a shirt. He bumps Jesse’s foot with his own. “You gonna tell me what’s going on with you?”

Jesse wants to. He wants to spill his guts to Steve, tell him about OA and Homer and Hap and the way her story became the most important thing to all of them. He wants to tell Steve about BBA saving him from Asheville. About the three of them packing up Theo’s things and blasting metal. About the shooting, and what came after. About the way he could never quite take a breath since then. He wants to tell Steve about the movements – he wants to  _show_  him.

“I can’t,” Jesse says slowly. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

Steve stares at him. “Try me.”

Jesse fiddles with the bowl, scrapes at the resin with a fingernail. He has no idea where to start, what to say. “I seem different, right?”

“Your memory’s worse. But, I don’t know, it’s always been kinda shitty. You smoke too much weed man.”

“This is different – I don’t remember a lot of stuff. I’m starting to, I think. But it’s because I haven’t been here very long.”

Steve doesn’t laugh like Jesse thought he might. Instead he asks: “Where were you?”

“Somewhere else.” Jesse closes his eyes. “I died there.”

“Jess. Don’t fucking joke about that.”

“I’m not, I – I died on a beach. In the early morning. And you were there – you were all there, but you didn’t know.” Jesse scrubs at his face with his sleeve, the tang of resin in the air, his fingers tar-sticky with it. “You must have saved me.”

Steve shifts, Jesse can hear the rustle of his clothes, but he doesn’t look. Keeps his eyes closed even when a warm hand settles on the back of his neck. “How’d I save you?”

Jesse doesn’t know. He presses his lips together, inhales sharply through his nose. “I was dead. I didn’t see. But I’m here, so you must have – someone must have – I think it was you, though. She said that there had to be perfect feeling to get it right and you always had perfect feeling, you were always good at it.”

“Good at what?” Steve’s voice is soft. “You’re worrying me, man.”

“Good at –” Jesse begins, and he wants to say  _living_ , wants to say  _feeling_ , two things that he himself never really mastered. But when he turns to look at Steve, Steve’s expression is open and so vulnerable that Jesse stops talking. Just shakes his head.

Steve draws a shaky breath. “Are you thinking about –? Is it bad again? I know you stopped seeing that shrink but maybe you should, like, go back.”

It’s a sudden flash, the memory: Steve sitting next to him in a pale blue waiting room, his legs flung wide enough that one knee is pressed against Jesse’s while the other bounces with nervous energy. His voice low and determined.  _It’s gonna be fine. It’s all gonna be fine._

Jesse jerks like he’s been shocked. Steve pulls his hand away, hisses under his breath. “Sorry. Just a suggestion.”

“That wasn’t you,” Jesse mumbles, and he’s already missing the contact. Doesn’t know how to ask for it back. “Just remembered something.”

Steve is quiet for a long time. Jesse stares miserably at the bong, the streaky glass and dirty water. There are bits of bud and ash floating in it and when he shakes it, turns the glass around and around, a tiny whirlpool drags the bits into a spiral. He has a bizarre impulse to drink it; sets it down, pushes it away from him with his foot.

“Sorry,” Jesse says. His voice breaks on the word. He’s not sure who he’s even apologizing to.

Steve makes an indignant sound. “Shut up. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I – I can’t remember stuff. Important stuff.”

“Like the shit with French?” Steve shuffles close again and he puts his whole arm around Jesse this time. Jesse has to bury his face in his own hoodie to muffle the uneven draw of his breath.

“Yeah. And other stuff, too.”

“Don’t worry about the other stuff. Me and Angie and Buck and Ali. It’s whatever, man.” Steve hugs him close. “And French – look, I don’t wanna get in your business. But I think you just need to talk to him. When you’re feeling better, y’know?”

Jesse leans into Steve’s side. Remembers the nap on the bus outside Reno, the best sleep he’d had in weeks in that dimension. “You never used to do this.”

“What – hug you? Jesus, where the fuck were you, dude?”

“There was a lot going on. We were on a-a mission.”

Steve hums like he understands. “Was it important?”

“Yeah. It was. But I couldn’t handle it, I was too – too tired and  _weak_ , and I was getting left behind. I couldn’t keep up.” The truth uncurls itself in his mind; blossoms. “I think – I think I  _wanted_  to die.”

Steve makes a noise in his throat, a cross between a growl and something else, and his arm tightens for a moment, but he doesn’t interrupt. Jesse draws a long breath.

“I wanted to die. But I didn’t. I was given another option, and I took it. That counts, right?”

“Jesse. You’re right here, you didn’t die.”

Jesse thinks of OA, of Scott and Homer. Rachel and Renata. “They died over and over again. I don’t know how they managed that. I don’t know how you survive that, Steve. How am I supposed to –? I wasn’t strong enough there, I got left behind. And now I’m here and I don’t remember anything.”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a moment. Jesse listens to their breathing, the rise and fall of it almost melodic. When he does speak, it’s measured, almost hesitant. “Remember when I punched Miles in the throat?”

Jesse glances at him. “Yeah.”

“You saw his subtweet and warned me. And Iet me stay with you until I could talk my parents out of sending me away – you and Ali hid me like I was in witness protection, it was crazy.” He meets Jesse’s eyes. “I would never have survived Asheville. You saved my fucking life.”

Another flash – this time it’s Steve shaking in a sleeping bag on Jesse’s bedroom floor. He had crawled onto the bed when Jesse had leaned over and tugged at his arm, too tired and confused and scared to offer words, and they had curled up in a bundle of limbs and Jesse hadn’t said anything about the tears on Steve’s face.

Steve is still looking at him. They’re close enough that Jesse can feel his breath on his face. “Who gives a fuck if you’re not strong right now. If you can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. Okay?”

Jesse looks away. His thoughts are a mess, conflicting memories of similar moments stretched like a web across time and space. “Okay.”

They sit like that for a while longer, huddled together on the floor of a dorm room in a different future. It’s drizzling outside. Rain spots the window and the sky darkens even as the sun rises. A quintessential November morning. Jesse yawns, and so does Steve.

“I think I can sleep now.” Jesse’s eyes are so heavy suddenly that he can’t keep them open. “‘M tired.”

“Wanna bunk with me?” Steve asks, and he’s already pushing to his feet, pulling Jesse with him like he doesn’t weigh anything at all. Jesse nods. Climbs into Steve’s bed and lets Steve throw an arm over him, tuck him into Steve’s chest. “Don’t you fucking go anywhere,” Steve tells him; the last thing Jesse hears before he finally drifts off.

*

When Jesse wakes up a few hours later he remembers.

His brain feels full. Like he had been walking around with only half as many thoughts as normal and suddenly the gaps are gone. He and Steve have shifted in the night, no longer pressed together, and Steve is sprawled out and snoring. Jesse remembers their first night in the dorm; remembers them choosing beds and unpacking their things. He remembers how Ali had hung around longer than he expected and had made his bed for him and teared up when she left. He remembers the first time Buck visited with Angie. He remembers his mom. The shooting at school, the one that they had all missed, late to get to the cafeteria by a number of small miracles and herded out the doors by a panicked teacher as shots rang out. He remembers his first panic attack after that. His second. His third. His first counseling session, Steve more uneasy in the waiting room than him, but insisting on being there.

He remembers finding out he and Steve got into college. He remembers poring over course listings and timetables, taking Steve’s dad’s car to Target and buying shit for their room. He remembers the goodbye party Angie and Buck threw for them even though they were only moving a few hours away. He remembers Ali driving them to campus on move-in day, him and Steve arguing over radio stations and insisting on swapping seats every hour despite Ali’s complaints.

And he remembers French.

*

He texts French that afternoon.  _Wanna hang out?_

French answers almost immediately.  _Sure. When?_

_Now. I’ll come over._

French has a single room, Jesse knows now. He also knows that it takes thirteen minutes to walk there if he takes a shortcut between the science buildings, so that’s what he does, ends up finishing at a half-jog. French is waiting for him in the lobby to let him in. He quirks his eyebrow at Jesse’s laboured breathing but doesn’t say anything, just leads him to his room – south wing, third floor, room seven – in silence.

“You’re different,” French says as he closes the door behind them. He turns, studies Jesse with dark eyes. “You seem –”

“I remember,” Jesse says. “French. I  _remember._ All of it.”

French squints at him. “What do you mean, all of it?”

“All of it. You and me.” Jesse’s face is burning, because the memories are recent, clear and strong like he’s replayed them a hundred times. “Seeing – um. Seeing your profile on Grindr.”

French’s mouth is curling up into a tentative smile. “You should have seen my reaction when I saw you on there.”

“What was your reaction when I messaged you?”

“I threw my phone across the room.”

Jesse laughs. Actually tips his head back and laughs, and French is grinning openly now, his eyes crinkled up at the corners. Jesse remembers the last time he’d seen French grin like that; in this same room late at night, their voices pitched to whisper. Moonlight and greedy hands.

French leans back against his desk, arms braced. "Steve said you had amnesia.”

“Yeah.” Jesse pauses. “Sort of. It’s hard to explain. Stuff – trauma – um, it –” He breaks off, looking down at his own hands. Months ago, in a medium’s dining room, he and French had held hands and tried to see across dimensions.

“Manifests?” French offers.

Jesse remembers how French’s hand felt in his; the slight tremor, whether from nerves or excitement he wasn’t sure. He’d stilled when Jesse stroked his knuckles. “Exactly.”

“I’m sorry,” French says. “I didn’t know. I thought you were ignoring me.”

Months after the medium’s house, in a dorm room, French’s hands had shook again and Jesse had stroked them again and he knew it was both nerves  _and_  excitement; knew because he felt both, too. He hadn’t been able to look away from French once. “I wasn’t,” Jesse says. “I promise.”

French nods. He looks nervous, suddenly, and Jesse remembers that too. How much it had surprised him. “So –”

“So, I wasn’t ghosting you.” He meets French’s gaze. “I wasn’t – not interested.”

French extends a hand and Jesse takes it. Lets French draw him in so that they’re standing in each other’s space. “Who would have thought,” French says, a little nonsensically, but Jesse understands. He runs a thumb over French’s palm.

For the first time since Jesse died the beach seems very far away.


End file.
